A Native of Nowhere

A Native of Nowhere

Ryan Koch was appointed the New York office director for the Public and International Affairs Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 2014. In this capacity, Koch oversees Church outreach to the diplomatic communities in New York and at the UN, including representing LDS Charities. He also is responsible for liaising with religious and faith-based organizations in New York. Koch has been interested in other cultures since spending his junior year of high school as an exchange student in Graz, Austria, with American Field Services (AFS). After that, he knew intercultural communication and living abroad would play a major role in his career.

He studied international relations at BYU (BA 2002) as a means to an end. Upon graduation, Koch joined the U.S. Department of State Foreign Service as a public diplomacy officer, where he served for over a decade, including at U.S. embassies in Manila, Philippines; Kyiv, Ukraine; and Stockholm, Sweden (where he also served a mission for the Church) and is fluent in Swedish, German, and Russian. He also spent three years in Washington, D.C., where he was heavily involved in the State Department’s social media efforts. With all the moves, Koch considers himself a native of nowhere and has lived at as many addresses as he is years old. He and his wife Laura are the parents of four splendid children.